


It's just so hard to see tomorrow past tonight

by Sylvalum



Category: Astral Chain (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Multi, Slice of Life, m!player, spoilers to file 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 16:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23476498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvalum/pseuds/Sylvalum
Summary: Carlos Kajioka stays at Hal's hideout and sees Brenda and Olive missing each other, Akira feeling sick of herself, and Alex and Hal failing to communicate their emotions. And while Carlos isn't an officer anymore, that doesn't mean that he can't still give them all a helping hand!
Relationships: Akira Howard & Player Character, Hal/Player Character (Astral Chain), implied brenda/olive
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	It's just so hard to see tomorrow past tonight

**Author's Note:**

> title from 'peach' by the front bottoms  
do _you_ love carlos kajioka? if not then you have my condolences

When Alex Howard, the noble and brave vigilante every kid yearning for some adventure or justice would want to be, brings Carlos Kajioka to meet the person who so kindly is letting all these people stay in his hideout – well, it’s immediately obvious to Carlos, that he means a great deal to Alex! The poor fellow, Hal, is however only present in the form of a bright yellow drone – and is he ever so busy with all those monitors of his – enough monitors to rival the police HQ in Zone 33! Doesn’t it get tiresome, Carlos wonders?

Then, next on Alex’s list of acquaintances and allies in his noble pursuit of justice: his very own twin sister, Akira Howard! Akira sits on a cot in the corner, head in her hands – and though she does smile when Alex looks to her, when she thinks no one is watching, Carlos notices how she droops. How she sags, as if weighed down by the weight of the entire Ark, and closes her eyes.

And, beside Akira, the lady with the bubble-gum pink hair… Why, if it isn’t Olive Espinosa, the newscaster turned Neuron! She’s polite and confident, and Carlos almost envies her calm demeanour – until he realises, that when Alex and Akira and Hal cluster together for a quick lunch, Olive opts to sit alone and sigh wistfully into her coffee.

“Does Olive not get lonely?” Carlos asks Alex, in his pursuit of more clues.

“I think she’s waiting for Brenda,” Alex answers.

And _that,_ Carlos knows, is what others would call _score._ With this new knowledge Carlos quickly bids his adieu and retreats, to start his search of the hideout. On the first floor are merchants, on the second floor a man and his dog… and out on the balcony overlooking the tragically desolate streets of Zone 09, stands a woman with blue hair, still robed in a lab coat reminiscent of a doctor’s. She _must_ be Doctor Brenda Moreno – famous in the medical field, and Olive’s dear… friend? Dear Brenda, perhaps, would sum it up most correctly.

“Good day, doctor!” Carlos tells her, stepping out onto the balcony. She turns around and raises an eyebrow. “Are you not Dr. Brenda Moreno?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Brenda answers. “If you’re ill, I’m afraid I don’t have any medicine on me-“

“No, no! Do not worry about me – I’m in perfect health.” Carlos waves her concern away. “Bu your friend – Ms. Olive Espinosa – misses you terribly, I’m afraid!”

“Does she now?” Brenda asks, her lips twitching but a little.

Boldened by his apparent ability to instil cheer and good humour into her, Carlos says, “Why yes! Even Alex Howard agrees with me, you see. And Olive has been sitting alone in a corner, abandoned and dejected…”

“Oh,” Brenda says, frowning a little. “I guess I’ll better go check on her. Thanks for notifying me, Mr…?”

“Carlos!” Carlos says. “Your ally in justice and the fight against evil.”

Brenda nods then quickly leaves.

* * *

Akira can’t believe how she never questioned Yoseph. Can’t believe how she didn’t ask for any more information about the Ravens, or about why they suddenly decided Alex and Olive and Brenda were traitors. And her brother is, as usual, too quick to forgive and forget, while Brenda and Olive only tell her to rest, take it easy, _it’ll all be okay, Akira-_

Akira needs to _make_ it okay.

Akira can’t just sit here while her brother and that drone Hal conspire about storming the ARI by _themselves,_ taking on Yoseph without any back-up – if Akira was remade to be that sick man’s perfect little soldier then shouldn’t Akira try to _use_ that somehow? Use her Legions to help her brother fight against Yoseph?

It’s her responsibility. Both as a sister and as an officer of Neuron.

She _needs _to fix everything she’s ruined by being too blind and too deaf and too uncaring.

But yet, “Akira,” Brenda tells her, gentle green eyes and her hands clinically cool as she fusses with taking Akira’s temperature, “You need to _rest._ You only just woke up from a coma. We don’t want any complications-“

“Brenda,” Akira snaps. “I’ve been resting long enough. I want in on this. Please.”

“Akira-“ Brenda sighs.

“Would you like an Alkali-Cocoa?” A voice then exclaims from behind Brenda, and the both of them startle and look up. Or well, Akira glares while Brenda only blinks.

“Oh, it’s you,” Brenda says. “I’ll have a cocoa yes, thank you.”

“And how about you, Akira?” the strange man with the ponytail and tray of drinks asks, looming closer.

“No thanks,” Akira says through gritted teeth.

“Well then,” the man says. “Brenda, I think Olive and Alex went outside to check on the gate sensors with Hal. If perhaps you…?”

“Maybe,” Brenda sighs, looks at Akira, then takes a sip of her drink. “Alright. I’ll go out to check on the others, and meanwhile, I want you to try to rest, Akira. Clear?” she doesn’t wait for Akira to answer before turning to the man and saying, “Carlos, you’re in charge.”

_“Hey,”_ Akira protests, but Brenda’s already leaving.

“How do you do!” the man, presumably Carlos exclaims, and takes a seat next to Akira on the cot.

Akira shrugs and scowls at her boots. “Why are you even here? Do you work for Hal or something?”

“No, no. I’m just a simple… well, I don’t what it is you call yourselves here. I’m pretty new.” He grins and fails to placate Akira, and then he sighs. “I used to be a police officer like yourself. Well, certainly not exactly like you – I was in the Harmony Square precinct, and I am no Legionis.”

“So why…” Akira begins, frowning.

“Am I here?” Carlos finishes. “You could say I lost my way. Or perhaps I simply found a new one! A road not often trodden upon – going from being a police officer with clear-cut orders, to… the kind of justice and help the people here are trying to provide. A less grand, less black-and-white kind of justice… but maybe a better, more desperately needed sort of justice. Sometimes what is right is not so easy…”

Akira, try as she might, can’t stop those words from sinking through her skull and into her brain. Because… maybe Alex really only did the right thing, when he infiltrated Zone 09. He _tried_ to get to the bottom of the story at least, based on the information on that data-chip they got from Jena Anderson. Her brother just happened to be in the right place at the right time, with Hal, because-

Because her brother never lost his Legion, never took a sword to the gut and allowed himself to be carted off to some lab and cloned. Because her brother always listens before he acts, while Akira is brash and arrogant and doesn’t _think._

“I only followed orders,” Akira says numbly. “And I tried – I tried so hard to protect my brother-“

In the mall, leaping to take the blow meant for Alex. In Neuron HQ, pleading to Commander Yoseph for her brother to be allowed back on duty. On the burning highway, trying to reason with the Ravens and with Yoseph as he ordered them to fire on her brother, but they ignored her and shot anyway and that blue-purple screaming reality-defying being once called Alex _fell-_

“Then you did the right thing,” Carlos says, turning to her. His previously manically cheerful look has become somewhat subdued into something older, more tired. “You tried your hardest, didn’t you? And sometimes… that is all that even the most valiant champions of justice can do. So do not be sorry, Akira, if you did all that you could!”

_But did I really?_ Akira doesn’t voice that thought, and instead makes herself nod. “Great,” Carlos tells her then, claps her on the back, and gets up to leave just as Alex and Hal return. He waves from the doorway before disappearing, and Akira… starts thinking.

* * *

When they sit down to dinner that night, a last meal before heading to the ARI, Alex is relieved to see Akira actually eating and talking with Olive and Brenda. Brenda has her arm around Olive, who’s giggling at something she said. Akira’s smiling. The problem with Alex and Akira is that they’re _both _the sibling who always worries; Alex has been on edge for as long as Akira’s been. And now Akira wants to follow them to the ARI, too…

The Howard twins always charge into the blaze together – of course Alex _wants_ her there, he just doesn’t think it’d be a good idea.

Alex pokes tiredly at his pasta. From behind him, Hal says, “You doing okay? Not to nag you or anything, but eating’s good for you.”

“Just stressed,” Alex says, and pastes on a smile for Hal’s drone. “And I hope _you’re_ eating too, wherever you are.”

“Hey,” Hal quips. “I could’ve been snacking this whole time and you wouldn’t know!”

That’s true. Whenever Hal doesn’t let them see the hologram, Alex has no way of knowing what he’s doing. What he’s thinking. Alex shrugs and tries to sound cheerful as he says, “Guess not.”

“Is this seat taken?” Says someone, and Alex turns his head. It’s Carlos Kajioka, the officer Alex helped earlier, now dressed in civvies similar to Alex’s.

“No. It’s free, go ahead.”

Carlos sits down, Hal’s drone flits back to his screens, and Alex stares longingly after him for a second before he forces himself to get a grip and takes a mouthful of stale pasta. Carlos turns to Alex and says expectantly, “Hal is a pretty amazing person, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, even as he frowns at Carlos. “What about it?”

“And you are good friends, yes?” Alex agrees, and Carlos continues; “So then why the sad expression, my companion in justice?”

Alex contemplates brushing Carlos off or telling him to get lost, but in the end he just sighs and says, “I’m just worried about Akira, and what Calvert’s planning, and – and I wish Hal was here, but… He doesn’t want to be. And if he doesn’t want to see me, then that’s ok! I get it.” It’s silly, it’s stupid, Hal _is _here – just because Alex can’t touch him doesn’t mean he isn’t here. That he isn’t trying so hard. That they’re not all working so hard to fix this mess together.

“Does Hal know you feel this way?” Carlos asks, looking pensive.

“I don’t want to bother him.” Alex stabs his pasta. “We’re going to the ARI in a few hours; we’ll be distracted enough as it is.”

Only good thing about is that they still have their Legions, and – that Akira’s back on their side now.

“But you really like him, don’t you?” Carlos is persistent. He has not touched his own pasta, and is instead staring intently at Alex. “And I believe that he very much likes you as well! So why don’t you ask him whether he wants to meet up with you, after you all return from your noble quest?”

Alex glances at Hal’s drone, then at the others, and then finally he looks at his pasta. “I guess… I could?”

“That’s the spirit!” Carlos exclaims, clapping him on the back before taking his plate and leaving once more. As soon as he’s gone Hal’s drone drifts back over, and Alex finds himself genuinely smiling up at it.

“Alex!” Hal says. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, standing up – shoulders back and chin up. He flexes his hands, locks eyes with Akira across the room. “Let’s get it over with.”


End file.
